by Pat Iannuzzi
William James, one of the pioneers in modern psychology, is credited with saying, “Procrastination is attitude’s natural assassin. There is nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task.”
Procrastination is something with which we are all familiar. When we procrastinate, we put off doing some important activity either because we just don’t like doing it or because we find it stressful. Sometimes we put off doing something so long that we end up facing the same unresolved issue the next day and the next and the next. We often subconsciously justify our procrastination by rationalizing that we need to be devoting our precious time to other activities, when in fact these other activities are relatively unimportant and just wind up wasting our valuable time. Sometimes, important activities never get done at all, thereby generating powerful negative impacts on our success and happiness.
Putting off an important task for a short period isn’t necessarily procrastination; it may just be good time management. So long as we have a good reason to postpone an activity and don’t delay action too long, we aren’t necessarily procrastinating. But if we’re making excuses for inaction simply because we really just don’t want to do something, then we are definitely falling victim to procrastination.
Procrastination can severely constrain our productivity. Even if we are performing a task that is worth doing and important in the general scheme of things, it may not be the activity that is most important and urgent at the current moment. Furthermore, procrastination drains our energy – often without our even knowing it – and can negatively impact our attitude and self-esteem because we know deep down that we are not truly facing and dealing with important issues in our lives the way we should be.
One effective approach to tackling procrastination is to face an activity we dislike doing head-on immediately at the beginning of the day. By addressing an unpleasant issue quickly and directly, we can get it out of the way and relieve the stress associated with the anticipation of doing it. Resolving a troubling issue in this way can actually wind up raising our energy level, brightening our attitude and increasing our momentum for the rest of the day.
Mark Twain once said, “If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is to eat a live frog, nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day.”
Twain’s frog, of course, is a metaphor for an issue we’re procrastinating about. The frog should be the most difficult or stressful thing on our list – the thing we are most likely to procrastinate about doing. If we don’t eat our frog first, it will just sit there all day while we do a hundred other less important activities, and we may eventually wind up not eating the frog at all.
Eating the frog at the start of the day will help us get off to a fast and productive start and generate a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that can power us throughout the day.
Pat Iannuzzi of Symbiont Performance Group, Inc. is a performance consultant, trainer and coach focusing on selling, presentation and interpersonal skills. He lives in Litchfield and can be reached at 860-283-9963 or piannuzzi@symbiontnet.com.
